MEM nights of drama
As the leaves turn russet and tumble to the ground, the members of MEM Players (Milltown, Emper and Moyvore) are putting the final touches to two one-act plays.
This year’s production is a night of drama as the group take on The Valiant by Holworthy Hall and Robert Middlemass (directed by Paul Curley) and Give A Little Love by Alan Stockdill (directed by Joe O’Hehir). The Milltown Rathconrath Community Centre will see an influx of drama lovers on Thursday November 20, Friday 21 and Saturday 22 for the three-night run of the shows.
The Valiant focuses on a man waiting in prison for execution. Nothing is known about him except that he killed a man. On his execution day, a girl comes to see him, thinking he may be her long-lost brother. The prisoner recognises her, but the sister is not sure it’s her sibling.
In Give A Little Love, four old school friends meet up after 30 years, at a Bay City Rollers tribute concert. It soon becomes apparent that you can take a girl from her teens but you can’t take the teenager from the girl. Old tunes and old flames die hard and live again in this tale of memories and music. Laugh, cry and shang-a-lang along with Liz, Karen, Debbie and Bev; and get swept away by this entertaining, touching and revealing drama.
“Rehearsals are going well,” group member Bernie McHugh said, “this year’s production is a little bit different for the group.”
Staging two one-act shows means that the performers have two different schedules: “We’re kind of like ships passing in the night, the two casts and the two directors. But it’s all going grand,” Bernie said.
MEM Players have a great reputation for quality drama: “We’re a well-established drama group and we try to get something on the boards every year. We do get a lot of local support.”
There’s a lot of excitement around this year’s production: “A different night from the point of view of what Milltown would have produced in the past,” Bernie told the Examiner. “We’re a three-act play group. So this is a very different offering.”
The choice of the material offers a variety to the audience: “The first play, The Valiant, has quite serious content, a brilliant storyline, and a lot of human emotion. There is great realism in it. Even though it’s set in the 1920s in the United States, which seems an awfully long time ago, the sentiment is still true.”
The second show is more light-hearted: “Given a Little Love is a trip back down memory lane. We are getting together after a 30-year gap of being in secondary school together. We’re telling our stories about college and the people we met in that 30-year gap. Each girl has a monologue of her own, her story, her own story to tell on the story chair.
“There’s crying, there’s laughing, there’s a huge emotion and joy and a lot of dancing and a lot of music.
“So we’re hoping people will be dancing the aisles with us for the second one. They couldn’t be more different, the two stories, and that’s why it’s such a lovely offering to the audience this year, two totally different scales.”
• Milltown Rathconrath Community Centre, November 20-22, 8pm.